Love and Olive Oilhttps://www.loveandoliveoil.com
Eat to Live. Cook to Love.Mon, 19 Feb 2018 17:50:25 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.8.1Subscribe with My Yahoo!Subscribe with FeedlySubscribe with BloglinesSubscribe with NetvibesSubscribe with PageflakesSubscribe with The Free DictionarySubscribe with Bitty BrowserSubscribe with Podcast ReadySubscribe with Daily RotationSubscribe with My AOLSubscribe with WikioSubscribe with Excite MIXSubscribe with GoogleSubscribe with NewsGatorSubscribe with WebwagSubscribe with Live.comSubscribe with PlusmoGreen Tomatillo Shakshukahttps://www.loveandoliveoil.com/2018/02/green-tomatillo-shakshuka.html
https://www.loveandoliveoil.com/2018/02/green-tomatillo-shakshuka.html#commentsMon, 19 Feb 2018 10:14:00 +0000https://www.loveandoliveoil.com/?p=38776

This verdant twist on shakshuka features green tomatillos (instead of red tomatoes as per the original) and plenty of fresh green herbs.

It’s not shakshuka: it’s SHREK-shuka.

The recipe is very similar to the shakshuka recipe in our book in terms of spices and seasonings; the main difference here, of course, is that the red tomatoes have been swapped with green tomatillos (which, believe it or not, aren’t even related to tomatoes but rather a close relative of the ground cherry).

We roasted the tomatillos, peppers and onions first in the oven, broiling them almost to the point of blistering. They are then blended with the fresh herbs to form a tangy green sauce not unlike a salsa verde (and indeed, if you have leftover sauce you can certainly eat it cold with tortilla chips!) A bit of cumin and coriander spice round out the flavors, giving it a bit of middle-Eastern AND Mexican flair.

Basically… this is what you’d get if the traditional middle-Eastern dish took a long vacation in Mexico.

The beauty of this dish is its simplicity: the eggs are poached in the sauce, no extra pans or fancy equipment or pro-poaching skills required. Whoever washes the dishes in your house will be glad of that, I’m sure.

Spritz in the summer, Manhattans in the winter… that’s pretty much Taylor’s cocktail game as of late. Once he finds something he likes he tends to stick with it… until he finds something else, that is.

The fact that he’s had at least a few of these every weekend since Christmas should tell you something about this cocktail.

Namely that you should probably make one, stat.

A classic Manhattan has 3 ingredients: rye whiskey, sweet vermouth, and Angostura bitters. Here we’ve simply swapped the whiskey for a pear brandy, resulting in a fresher, fruitier version of a manhattan.

We’d run across an Apple Manhattan recipe in 3-Ingredient Cocktails (one of Taylor’s new favorite cocktail books) that uses apple brandy in place of whiskey. Since we didn’t have apple brandy, he pulled out a bottle of pear brandy from St. George Spirits. We had actually visited the Oakland distillery a few years back when we were out visiting my sister, and fell in love with the fresh pear taste of this brandy (seriously, it tastes just like fresh pears). Luckily our local liquor store was able to order us a bottle and we’ve been hoarding it ever since.

The simple swap of pear for whiskey results in a fresher, fruitier version of a Manhattan. I’d say it was downright summery if pear weren’t a winter fruit. But it’s not heavy or overly strong, rather the fresh notes of pear play beautifully with the infused herbs and spices from the vermouth.

And sometimes sometimes is actually all the time if you happen to be Taylor.

And I realized, while I’ve got recipes for Red Wine Chocolate Cake and Whiskey Chocolate Cake and Lemon Cake with Fudge Frosting, I’d never actually posted a recipe for a damn good chocolate cake, your basic chocolate on chocolate, the kind Taylor requests each and every year for his birthday, and the kind I usually deny him in lieu of something ‘weird’ (see: aforementioned red wine chocolate cake, which, while good, is definitely not plain).

So, for once, I acquiesced and gave him exactly what he asked for.

And, since it didn’t turn out quite right the first time (the cake was TOO moist—if there is such a thing—and the frosting too stiff, which made it hard to assemble—not that that stopped us from eating the whole thing), I made it again the following week to perfect the recipe.

That’s TWO plain-ass chocolate cakes in three weeks, dear husband. Two cakes add up to a whole slew of wife points (still deciding what I should cash them in for… a kitten, perhaps? lol just kidding! 3 cats, unlike 2 cakes, is more than enough).

Anyway. Let’s talk cake.

The base recipe is actually very similar to the Red Wine Chocolate Cake, just with plain hot water instead of red wine in this case, as well as bit more oil and a bit more salt and vanilla to amp up the chocolate flavor.

I learned my lesson with the first cake that you shouldn’t mess with a good thing (I tried to add sour cream to make it even more rich and moist and it was so moist it could barely support itself let alone layers of dense fudge frosting).

As for the frosting, it’s a variation on a classic American buttercream, with cocoa and powdered sugar, but made with a bit of sour cream and hot water to cut the sweetness, and melted chocolate to make it even more fudge-like.

It’s super creamy and shiny when you first mix it up (just ignore that moment when you first add the hot water… despite what it looks like, it will work!) However, like all frostings that use melted chocolate, it will set up and loose its shine as it cools, so you can’t really make it ahead of time. If you freeze your cake layers like I froze mine, you do have to work pretty quickly as you frost the cake to prevent the frosting from setting up too firmly before you’re done. I imagine it’d hold its shine longer in the summer.

While I was originally shooting for a super glossy dark chocolate frosting, this version was too good not to share, even if it wasn’t quite what I intended (I’m going to keep working on that glossy frosting, so don’t be surprised if you see another chocolate cake recipe here in the near future!)

Now let’s turn our focus to the pantry: with the right ingredients on hand you can easily throw together a last minute dinner when you simply can’t make it to the store, or bake up a batch of basic cookies or brownies for that surprise bake sale you didn’t know was happening (or, you know, the late night craving that hits just when the snow starts to fall…)

This post includes some of the items we use on a regular basis and like to have stocked and on hand for convenience when cooking. If you’re just starting to build your pantry, you certainly don’t have to go buy all this at once, rather slowly build up your inventory as needed. I’ve only included shelf-stable items here; pantry items that require refrigeration for storage/after opening are not included here.

Disclaimer: while this post is not sponsored and no brands have paid to be included here, many of these products were received as part of past/present brand partnerships. That said, should our kitchen be reduced to rubble today, we wouldn’t hesitate to buy them again ourselves tomorrow. Meaning, everything on this list is something we own and love and use on a regular, if not daily, basis. There are also affiliate links in this post, FYI. And if you’re reading this post in RSS or email you might want to click through to the post page for easy clickable links to every item on this list!

Moon milk might seem like a new trend sweeping the Internets, but it’s actually an age-old Ayurvedic remedy for sleeplessness. Curl up with this warm, caffeine-free beverage before bed and fall into a peaceful slumber.

I was originally going to call this a butterfly pea latte or blue matcha latte, but once I read about moon milk… and the fact that this was blue… well, blue moon milk seemed like the perfect name for it.

I know, I know, I seriously missed out on an SEO goldmine by not posting this LAST week before the super blue blood moon. But here I am, a few days late but luckily not a dollar short, with this recipe for a calming bedtime beverage that you can enjoy regularly, and not just once in a blue moon.

Warm milk itself is an age-old remedy for sleeplessness, and that serves as the foundation of this bedtime beverage. I’ve also read that both nutmeg and cinnamon have a calming effect in small doses, so I figured all these ingredients together have got to do something. (Although, to be honest, you can google just about anything and “for sleep” and someone will probably have claimed it can have positive sleep benefits. So, who knows. I’m certainly no scientist and I know better than to blindly believe everything I read on the internet.)

To add to our already triple dose of calm, many recipes for moon milk call for something called ashwagandha: a plant in the nightshade family (related to the tomato) that is said to promote relaxation and healing. It’s what’s called an an adaptogen: a group of natural substances that are said to modulate your body’s response to stress and balances bodily functions.